


First Move Advantage

by Lightning_Skies



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-10
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-11 19:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1177102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning_Skies/pseuds/Lightning_Skies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles, Scott and Allison opened themselves up to the Nemeton they also made themselves vulnerable to anything lurking in the dark that wants to play.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Move Advantage

**Author's Note:**

> Gift for the Teen Wolf Rarepair exchange (sn removed by request)
> 
> I was going for a Peter/Stiles that fit your prompt for demons, but somehow 'demons' turned into 'alternate demon-like supernatural creature'
> 
> I hope you like it anyways. The concept was so much fun I was thinking of maybe expanding it into a series.

With Derek and Cora safely out of town and out of the way, Peter turned his attention to his nephew's former pack. He could feel them huddled together at Deaton's office. It was truly a sad commentary on Derek's tenure as Alpha that his only surviving Beta couldn't sense the older man watching through the windows. He waited patiently for the opportune moment to investigate and it paid off several hours later when Deaton finally got tired of trying to run his office around Isaac and Lydia's frenetic pacing. He slipped in through the rear entrance as the harassed veterinarian opened the mountain ash barrier and shoved the worried duo out the front door with orders to feed themselves before they came back.  
  
He waited for the good doctor to settle in at his desk and listened for the soft rustle of pen on paper before he emerged from the shadows and prowled around the three tubs, full of bodies but empty of souls. He traced a claw against the rim of Stiles' tub, head cocked and listening to the echoing silence of their absent heartbeats, "What have we here? Three cute, helpless, little pigs, snug in their tombs of tin."  
  
He crouched down next to the tub and laid his head on his arm on the rim as he trailed his claws through the mistletoe laced water mere inches from Stiles' slack face. "All of this temptation, laid out and ripe for the taking. How could any big bad wolf resist? I'll just have to huff and puff and blow your watery grave in."  
  
In one brutal movement he had his wrist pressed to his face as he ripped his own veins open. Blood streamed from the wound as he resumed his nonchalant stirring, fat drops of red obscuring his view of the teenager within as the water gained a crimson tint. He reached down into the slowly opaquing fluid to run his claws across Stiles' face, opening a series of thin cuts, barely deep enough to bleed. He watched with hungry eyes as his blood reached out and met with the human's and the tub water began to boil violently in reaction.

Deaton shifted slightly in his chair as he filed a patient's chart in his desk drawer and pulled another to look over, hearing nothing but continuing silence from the other room.

* * *

Stiles sat up with a gasp, spraying water everywhere as he jolted upright, grabbing at the edges of the tub to avoid sliding back into the water. He could hear splashing to both sides as Allison and Scott sat up as well. He blew water out of his nose and slicked his hair back as he blinked his eyes clear, then squinted against the brightness.  
  
White. His first impression was how very _white_ everything was. He glanced to the side to see that Scott was still his dark haired and golden skinned self, a comforting oasis of normal coloring in this bizarrely bleached room. His hand clenched around his father's badge as he dragged himself out of the tub, looking around.  
  
He wasn't sure what he had expected, but several inappropriate jokes about Hell being a waiting room flashed through his mind, choked back by the seriousness of the situation. The room was enormous, and everything except for them was that same headache inducing, eyeball irritating, fluorescent white. White concrete floors stretched for what seemed like a mile in front of them paralleled by boring white ceiling with built in lighting, before meeting vague white walls, the monotony only broken by regularly occurring white pillars.  
  
Sound was muffled, but incompletely, like wearing sound dampening headphones on only one ear. Their splashing movements sharply broke the quiet stillness of the air. To his right Allison's bare feet slapped against the floor with the abruptness of gunshots, but her deep breaths seemed distant and whispered, while the echoes of dripping water consumed the room, growing louder and louder, rather than loosing intensity.  
  
They turned as one to see the Nemeton behind them, a dark smudge against the whiteness. Where Scott's dark coloring had been a comfort, the Nemeton seemed to mar the white in a sinister way. Stiles tried to convince himself it was just his mind making associations, because of course Scott would be more comforting in a weird magical surrogate sacrifice world than the evil tree stump of evil.  
  
They approached the stump warily, but it stayed dark and silent, waiting for them to make the first move. The walk across the white floors seemed to both take forever and be over in one single long step, but Stiles hung back as Scott and Allison approached it. Something was niggling at the edge of his senses, a loud but bare whisper of a noise. He turned around slowly, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from until he saw the tubs they had emerged from.  
  
"Scott?" There was no answer and even he could barely hear his own voice as it died in the air inches from his lips. He took a deep breath and dug deep into that same feeling that had helped him manipulate the mountain ash at the rave and mentally fed its power into his voice.  
  
" **Scott!** " It echoed like a boom of thunder and the others whirled around startled at the noise. "What the hell is _that_?"  
  
"What?" Scott's eyes glanced over the tubs, not lingering over any one of them.  
  
Stiles tore his eyes away to stare at Scott incredulously. "You don't see that?"  
  
Allison turned to Stiles in concern, "What do you see Stiles. There's nothing there."  
  
Stiles turned terrified eyes back to the tubs where geysers of blood red water were shooting out of the tub he had been sitting in a few minutes earlier. A quick glance showed that the fluid wasn't draining away anywhere and was rapidly spreading their way. "I think it's blood." He whispered. "So much blood."  
  
"Stiles, I don't see anything." Scott's worried voice sounded far away in more than distance, it was like a memory of something once said to him. Stiles watched in horror as the fluid undulated impossibly and built up into a wave.  As it rushed in their direction, there was nowhere to go and all he could do was throw up his arms to protect himself from the wall of fluid bearing down on him. His terrified cry was choked off as his mouth filled with warm coppery liquid. He could feel his heart go crazy, throbbing erratically in his chest and he collapsed to his knees gagging on the the blood forcing it's way down his throat.  
  
He could hear the urgent murmur of Scott and Allison's voices as he looked up into their worried faces, but the ringing in his ears prevented him from understanding them as his vision darkened to the black of unconsciousness.

* * *

"There you are." Peter watched in dark satisfaction as his blood probed at the cuts in Stiles' face and began to worm its way inside. He frowned as he became aware of Stiles' ritualistic spiritual anchor, tying him to Lydia and the land of the living. He viciously severed it. "You won't be needing that."

* * *

Miles away, Lydia and Isaac were just leaving the only 24-hour diner in town with their dinner when Lydia gasped and dropped her food with a distant, terrified look in her eyes. "Stiles."  
  
Her eyes rolled back in her head as she fainted and Isaac had to carry her back to the car.

* * *

Scott watched in horror as Stiles freaked out and started choking on nothing. He hovered over his best friend trying to decide if touching him was a good idea. Stiles had always told him never to touch someone who was having a panic attack, but what if this wasn't a panic attack. He didn't know what to do as Stiles fell to his knees and hunched over, trying desperately to breathe, drowning on dry air.  
  
"Scott, his shadow." Allison's hand on his shoulder grounded him as his eyes followed her pointing finger. They were standing so close together that their shadows bunched into one mass, faint smudges of darker white against the pale concrete. Stiles' shadow, on the other hand, was was visibly darkening shade by shade to a pitchy black that didn't fit the bleached world and it didn't seem to conform to his movements, shifting with a mind of its own. It moved like an independent entity as it clung to Stiles's feet.  
  
Stiles' head snapped back, startling Allison into taking a step back as she and Scott looked down into his blood red eyes. They weren't Alpha red, but instead the entirety of the visible eye was glowing a solid, shiny red. There was no sign that Stiles could see them as those creepy red eyes stared blankly past them without blinking. They watched in horror as the shadow surged up out of the ground and curled around Stiles' feet, pulling him down into what should have been a solid floor. Scott tried to pull Stiles away, but a whiplike tendril of darkness shot out of the shadow and sliced across his bicep. The cut was deep and painful, but even more terrifying was the sizzling heat that the shadow let off, as if it was made of molten hot tar.  
  
Stiles didn't look to be harmed where the shadow lapped at his skin, slowly pulling him under, but any time Allison or Scott approached or tried to pull him away they were violently rebuffed. In the end, they were both covered in scorch marks and cuts but could do nothing but watch helplessly as Stiles' terrified face was covered over by the malicious tar.

* * *

Stiles found himself floating in the dark, but he wasn't afraid. There was an odd sensation of completeness and rather than feeling isolated in the shadows, he felt embraced. There was a tugging at the edge of his senses that he found himself following back to consciousness. He opened his eyes to see a strange white world. Fluffy white clouds floated against a sunny white sky and white grass and trees sprouted from the white dirt. He staggered to his feet, feeling ungainly and awkward, as if his muscles hadn't been used in a long time. He wondered idly how long he had slept as he let out a huge yawn, his tongue lolling out and curling against his sharp teeth. He pressed his chin into his forelegs as he rolled his spine, settling each vertebra from snout to tail into its proper alignment.  
  
His large silvery white paws flexed against the dirt as he thought back. Something had happened. This white world wasn't normal. He knew that whatever had happened, Scott and Allison had been there and still should be. Stiles lifted his nose into the air and sniffed deep, but couldn't pick up their scents. He slowly turned, sniffing at each new air current, hoping to locate his friends. A sense of panic welling up inside him. He knew this had been a bad idea. They never should have trusted Deaton's mysterious 'all knowing' act.  
  
The breeze shifted, bringing a new scent to his attention, it wasn't Scott or Allison, but something about it was familiar. He could feel his ears and tail perk up in interest as he followed the scent. His nose led him straight to a teenager, sleeping under a group of trees. His dark clothing and hair stood out boldly against the white world and something about him seemed familiar. Stiles investigated carefully, trying not to wake him up as he nudged at the kid's soaking wet clothing with his nose, attempting to get a clearer scent and remember why he was so familiar. His attention was caught on a glint of metal clasped tight in the kid's hand and he bent down for a closer look, but was completely distracted when something nipped at his tail.  
  
He would forever deny the high pitched yelp he let out in his shock as he whirled around to see who had snuck up on him. A big shaggy black dog-wolf-thing grinned back at him with the entirety of its considerable collection of teeth. It was easily twice his size and he froze in horror, staring at it's big pearly white fangs and bright, glowing red eyes. He stared deep into those eyes for a moment that stretched into eternity, feeling his fur prickle in unease but unable to look away. He was shaken out of his shock when it reached out one of it's freakishly large bear paws and thwapped him upside the head, knocking him over and barked it's amusement in his face. Ok, not so terrifying then.  
  
His eyes narrowed up at the beast and he growled at it in all the glory of his pathetic, skinny-little-puppy-who-hasn't-quite-grown-into-his-paws fierceness, which is to say, none at all. He lunged at the black dog and snapped at his feet, but the big guy was more sprightly than Stiles had expected and danced away just far enough to taunt him. _Oh, it was ON._ Forgetting completely about the weirdly nostalgic teenager he chased after the black dog, nipping and snapping playfully as they tumbled through the pale woods and chased each other through bleached fields. Finally, they collapsed together in some random clearing, curled around each other and soaking in the white sunlight.  
  
As he faded off to sleep he could feel the other dog wrapped around him and snuffling at him, memorizing his scent with deep satisfied whuffs of air. He fairly radiated smug self satisfaction. Stiles 'accidentally' smacked  him straight across the snout with a paw as he rolled over and stuffed his nose under the black dog's hip, determined to enjoy the warmth of the unnatural sunlight. There was nothing actively trying to kill him so he could worry about Scott and Allison and Deaton's creepy rituals later, he was tired.

* * *

Scott was trying to work up the nerve to poke the inactive puddle of best-friend eating goo when it started bubbling. He backed off, herding Allison behind him. She glared at the arm he was trying to block her with, but allowed his misguided attempt at protection. The black tar swelled upwards, inflating like a balloon until it was roughly human sized, then broke suddenly, viscous black fluid splashing to the floor as whatever gave it life released it.  
  
Scott gaped at the sight of Peter fucking Hale, rising out of the sludge, holding an unconscious Stiles in his arms. Peter's body looked dark and shadowy, with badly defined edges, as if it was made out of the evil tar, but Stiles looked washed out, his skin pasty and his hair and clothing ashy. He was so pale it looked like he was glowing.  
  
Scott stepped forward, reaching for his best friend, "Stiles!"  
  
A tendril of darkness shot out from the shadow that curled around Peter's feet and sliced deep into the colorless concrete floor right where Scott had been standing. The teen stumbled back just in time, saved from falling only by the grace of Allison's steadying hands. "Do you know, Scott, just how _vulnerable_ this little ritual of yours makes the three of you? You have bared your very _souls_ to anything and everything that goes unseen in the darkness."  
  
"Let Stiles go!" Scott lunged at the older man, but pulled up sharply as another bit of darkness cut through the air a hairsbreadth from his face.  
  
Peter stroked his hand through Stiles' hair mockingly, "Or what?"  
  
"Or I'll make you!"  
  
Peter just laughed, "Go ahead and try."  
  
Scott screwed up his face in effort, but nothing happened. He stared at his blunt human nails in confusion, "What?"  
  
"You aren't a wolf here," Peter explained smugly, still petting Stiles. "You, who never wanted the bite, who refused to accept it. You still think of yourself as a human and here you are, just as defenseless as one."  
  
"Derek said you were still weakened, I'll take my chances."  
  
Peter's face screwed up in distaste. "Derek doesn't know what he's talking about. I was weak, yes, but now I'm much stronger than even Deucalion."  
  
"How?" Allison demanded. There was no way she wanted him to be an Alpha again.  
  
"Have you ever heard of a black dog? It's a type of spirit animal. Black dogs are regarded as a portent of death, sometimes said to carry away the souls of the dead like a grim reaper. They are described as larger than a normal dog with glowing eyes. They are associated with electrical storms, crossroads, places of execution and ancient pathways. Most of the legends agree, almost unanimously, that black dogs are malevolent," He paused for a second to smirk, "…but they're occasionally reported to have behaved benevolently. Many different cultures have legends about them: the Grim, the Black Shuck, the Cu Sith, the Mauthe Doog, the Barguist, the Gwyllgi… my personal favorite is the Cadejo of South and Central America."  
  
"Storytime is great and all, but get to the point." Allison shivered at the droll look Peter sent her way. Half dressed and soaked to the skin, she felt like a mouse standing up to a lion. She had never even heard of a creature that could wield the darkness as a physical power.  
  
"The point is that I'm not a wolf either. Haven't been since I died."  
  
"That's not possible," Scott scoffed. "We would have noticed that."  
  
"No? Well, I'm sure that had I asked a few months ago, you would have had the same conviction that someone who has been lit on fire and had their throat slashed couldn't come back to life, but here I am." Peter waved one hand at himself in a 'ta-da' motion. "But, back to my story... The Cadejo."

"They say that it lurks in graveyards and alleys waiting to attack passing victims. It terrorizes its chosen victims with phantom sounds and portents, playing with it's prey. Once the victim is properly terrified, the black Cadejo will tear them apart. It's fur and skin shimmers in the light, and if you look in it's glowing red eyes it can hypnotize you or even drive you to insanity." Peter's eyes turned a bright, terrifying, blood red, just like Stiles' had. He pinned them both with a glance, freezing them in place for a long moment in a show of power before he blinked his eyes slowly back to normal in an obvious sign that he was magnanimously choosing to let them go.  
  
"It is said that there are three types of Cadejo. The first is the devil himself in animal form, a cow sized shaggy black dog with the hooves of a goat, that trails red hot chains from it's legs. It cannot be killed, but is also unlikely to attack as it acts as a scout, searching for souls to corrupt."  
  
"The second type of Cadejo is a simple evil dog spirit. Said to be the mortal hybrid of a Cadejo and a dog it savagely attacks it's victims and can drive them mad with a single bite. It is said that any man of strength can defeat it. I suppose, despite the fallacy of the legends, you could say that this is what I was when I came back, weak and mortal."  
  
"The third kind of Cadejo is the most dangerous. It is impossible for a mortal man to kill. This type of black Cadejo has a mate, the white Cadejo. Once they have bonded they become invincible except to each other. The only thing that can stop a mated black Cadejo is it's white counterpart."  
  
Allison realized the importance of what he was saying first, her confused expression falling into horror as her eyes darted from Peter's dark form to Stiles' pale one and back. " _No._ "  
  
Peter grinned with a mouth full of fangs, "Oh, yes. I really must thank you for exposing yourselves so thoroughly to outside influences. I never would have managed this without you. I always said that he would make a good wolf, but he makes an even more magnificent spirit animal, and he will be tied to me for the rest of our immortal lives."  
  
"Stiles would never let himself be bound to you." Scott insisted, furiously. "If I could fight your Alpha power as a Beta then he can fight anything you try to do to him."  
  
" _Try?_ " Peter mused, "I don't have to _try_ anything. That's the wonder of it. I ATE his shadow, Scott. I mixed my blood with his and I consumed him. He is Mine and there is nothing you can do about it. Even if I planned to let him continue his life with you, it will only be a few short decades until everyone he knows is dead of old age and all he has left is me. I am his darkness and he is my light. Yin and yang. Balanced. Indivisible. Eternal."  
  
The shadows surged around Peter and he sank into their embrace, Stiles clutched possessively to his chest. He kept eye contact with Scott the entire time, cruel satisfaction written all over his face. "I've already won."

* * *

Isaac screeched to a stop in front of the Veterinary office, throwing the car into park, but not bothering to turn it off as he bolted for the door. He burst into Deaton's office, panicked and breathing hard as he pounded against the mountain ash barrier. "OPEN IT! Something is wrong."  
  
"Where is Lydia?" Deaton opened the barrier as quickly as he could, startled with the wolf's desperation and was almost bowled over as the tall boy ignored his question and shoved past him towards the back room. He followed the frantic teen and narrowly avoided walking straight into his back as he stopped his headlong rush abruptly. "Isaac?"  
  
"She knew." Isaac muttered, "She knew something was wrong, but we were too late. I wasn't fast enough."  
  
Scott and Allison lay quietly in their metal vessels, but the middle tub was empty except for a glint of a misshapen metal badge left abandoned in the bottom.

**Author's Note:**

> 'First Move Advantage' is the theory that since White moves first in chess it has an inherent advantage over Black. Of course, in this story Black moves first.


End file.
